21. M A L A K H I T E S : Fallen

CHAPTER II

1992

AMAZON RAINFOREST

"Are you sure she's ready?"

"Oh, Zuriel, darling. Always doubting. Must your inner Thomas always swim at the surface? Have a little faith!"

Zuriel and Claire (now considerably older, unlike Rosh Rishon, and going by the name "Ariel") sat in a helicopter that flew over the vast expanse of the Amazon, their ears protected from the sound of the propellers by thick pairs of headphones.

Zuriel looked out the side of the chopper to the ground below, his eyes narrowed. "What makes you think this will even work?" he asked in a low voice.

"I believe I explained that rather clearly before we departed," Ariel responded, frowning. "Her blood possesses the purest concentration of angelic DNA we've ever detected in our line—even higher than yours. Add two plus two and you'll get four." She gave Zuriel a confident smile. "Your offspring will be the paragon of vessels for our ancestors."

"You'd better pray you're right," Zuriel muttered. "Otherwise this is just a waste of my time."

"Is your time really ever wasted?" Ariel asked, tilting her head. "After all, you've got all the time in the world thanks to those nephilium rings of yours." She nodded toward Zuriel's hands.

Zuriel grunted. "I'm disembarking," he said, pulling off his headphones and unbuckling his seatbelt. He stood up and leaned out of the helicopter, squinting at the ground. "Wait for me at the rendezvous point!" he shouted over his shoulder. "This won't take long!"

With that, he leapt out of the helicopter.

Ariel sighed and shook her head. "So impatient," she commented. "And he forgot his parachute, too."

-

P.O.V. – Cecelia

Cecelia Walden—adventurous niece of Ariel Walden and wildlife researcher—slashed through the underbrush with her machete as she spoke into her recorder. "Okay, I'm about three miles south of the tribal grounds," she reported. "Hopefully they remember me from last week and don't try to eat me again. That definitely wasn't one of my finer moments."

Suddenly, a distant sound—a muffled boom—echoed through the rainforest. Cecelia stopped, crouching low to the ground. "Whoa! That sounded like gunfire!" she whispered into her recorder. "Those poacher goons better not be attacking the Huachipaeri!"

Silence filled the air for about five seconds, prompting Cecelia to breath a short sigh of relief. "Okay, that might've been nothing. Maybe some thunder. And in that case," she added, "I'd better pick up the pace. Don't want to be caught by the rain—"

She was interrupted by a low growl coming from her left.

Cecelia froze and turned pale. "—or... something else," she said slowly as she turned to see what had made the sound.

A pair of glowing yellow eyes stared at her from the darkness.

"Oh, darn," Cecelia whimpered.

The eyes suddenly lunged forward, followed by the rest of the body belonging to a massive jaguar. It let out a yowl as it pounced, claws outstretched and eyes flashing eagerly.

Cecelia simultaneously fell backward, the world slowing around her as the jaguar came closer and closer.

Its attack, however, was interrupted when an absolutely gigantic human being appeared out of nowhere and rammed his shoulder into the jaguar's flank.